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Topic: What do you want in a sci-fi MMOG? (Read 2211 times)

The other thread has piqued my interest. Or rather, prompted me to go into data mining mode. So here I am, posing a question to you guys: what do you think is important for a true sci-fi MMOG? To clarify a bit, I mean MMOG as a game with a shared persistent setting.

And to get the ball rolling, here's what I think. Again, in clarification, I'm primarily talking about a "starships and blasters" setting - but it all holds true just as well for cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic or whatever ones - just replace terms where appropriate.First up, interaction and a mutable world. For me, an MMOG is first of all about sharing a huge world with other players and being able to alter this world through your actions. So any game that tries to confine each player (or group) into his own instance of an area or running a personal plot that alters the world only for you is completely missing the point. This is even more important in sci-fi because that usually gives you a pretty much unlimited playground (Especially if it's set in space) and you can't just dodge the problem by saying that there isn't enough space for everyone to build something - besides, everyone seems to handle general overpopulation just fine by adding more shards.I want to be able to build something, and don't mind having to defend it, as long as I have a reasonable chance of winning.Also, I never liked quests with plot. Something generic like bounties and specific orders works fine, bits of plot specifically for your character... see above.

Second, combat mechanics. The whole "tank, damage, healing" construct just doesn't stand when everyone has a blaster and there's no reason for them to attack specifically that guy who seems to barely do any good with his attacks, but holds up ridiculously well under fire. Sure, it works in someplaces, but the moment I hear about a character's "tanking qualities" in a system with more than three (Okay, four) classes, or no classes at all, my opinion of the game drops by several notches. Or at least of the community. But even before that, it definitely takes a different control scheme than "choose target, choose attack, wait for execution", especially when all the cool gadgets start appearing.

Third, oddly enough, combat in general. Again, MMOG seem to have great potential for making a world, not just a slightly more complex game. Maybe it's worth trying to step away and look for other activities - trade and strategy in general work well enough already, why not expand it all the way up to politics and other stuff usually grouped together as "role-playing". Sure, it's all around harder, but as years pass, more and more players I run into seem to at least acknowledge the idea, if not searching for it.

Fourth, scale and setting. This deserves a whole article of its own and has bugged me pretty much ever since I started playing MMOG's, but to cut it down somewhat - it should define exactly what your character is. "You're an adventurer. Go adventure" kind of works in swords-and-sorcery because of all the stereotypes (Thanks, D&D!), but it takes some background for a proper sci-fi tale. Just how powerful is your character, compared to a regular citizen? Why is he special? Why must he do what he does instead of following his calling as a used hovercar salesman?

Now, with different accents, this is not one game, but three vastly different ones I'd like to see! They may eventually merge into one Ubersetting and cause the collapse of civilisation, but that's going to take decades.

First offers you a huge universe for you to explore and fight over and explore on several different levels - physical, economical, industrial. Your character can do pretty much anything, as long as one core condition is met: he's relatively powerful and capable of easy travel. This pretty much exists in EVE.

Second is combat-centric, but on a much smaller scale - maybe it's a local conflict on one planet, or a solar system, or maybe an asteroid belt. It can have an external, non-player force as its main antagonist, or just pit two player factions against each other. Doesn't really matter, as long as the conflict is global, ongoing, and chaotic - not organised 15vs15 "matches" lasting 10 minutes, but never-ending battles where fortifications are built, destroyed and captured, tides turn over days, opportunities arise, and players on one side have to work together. This is what I hoped TR, later Global Agenda, and now Firefall would become.

Third is the most niche and the smallest one. Taking place in a confined and closed setting - maybe a single space station, or city, or colony; this attempts to run a player-driven plot you're more likely to see in a table-top RPG. There's little, if any combat (If you really want to, though, there's always cyberspace or VR or something), and conflicts arise around limited resources and problems that concern everyone - but whose solution will be implemented in the end and what problems of its own is it going to cause? This system works well on a much smaller scale (Look for "Space Station 13") and was attempted once or twice as a true MMOG - they weren't successful, but they weren't even known in the first place. To my knowledge, no game like this is currently running, or even planned right now.

I would just throw something out there of what *some* people consider the best "Sci-Fi" rpg.... although it does have a stupid amount of fantasy setting in there (i know i know, but at least they explain HOW it happens... mostly).

The other thread has piqued my interest. Or rather, prompted me to go into data mining mode. So here I am, posing a question to you guys: what do you think is important for a true sci-fi MMOG? To clarify a bit, I mean MMOG as a game with a shared persistent setting.

And to get the ball rolling, here's what I think. Again, in clarification, I'm primarily talking about a "starships and blasters" setting - but it all holds true just as well for cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic or whatever ones - just replace terms where appropriate.First up, interaction and a mutable world. For me, an MMOG is first of all about sharing a huge world with other players and being able to alter this world through your actions. So any game that tries to confine each player (or group) into his own instance of an area or running a personal plot that alters the world only for you is completely missing the point. This is even more important in sci-fi because that usually gives you a pretty much unlimited playground (Especially if it's set in space) and you can't just dodge the problem by saying that there isn't enough space for everyone to build something - besides, everyone seems to handle general overpopulation just fine by adding more shards.I want to be able to build something, and don't mind having to defend it, as long as I have a reasonable chance of winning.Also, I never liked quests with plot. Something generic like bounties and specific orders works fine, bits of plot specifically for your character... see above.

So more of an open sandbox setting then... It will only really apply to a certain "playstyle" of character. Does leave it more open for people to make the character that they want, but without much limitation on the "story line" they could end up with "god characters".

Instancing is typically more of a technical/story limitation as it allows you to play more of the "crafted story", or just to quite plainly prevent "griefing".

Now in an open sandbox MMO i can understand the removal of instancing. But one of the MMO's that i would *love* to see made, would actually have to use quite a bit of instancing for missions... if only just to make it more technically feasible... and to prevent peoples computers from melting.

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Second, combat mechanics. The whole "tank, damage, healing" construct just doesn't stand when everyone has a blaster and there's no reason for them to attack specifically that guy who seems to barely do any good with his attacks, but holds up ridiculously well under fire. Sure, it works in someplaces, but the moment I hear about a character's "tanking qualities" in a system with more than three (Okay, four) classes, or no classes at all, my opinion of the game drops by several notches. Or at least of the community. But even before that, it definitely takes a different control scheme than "choose target, choose attack, wait for execution", especially when all the cool gadgets start appearing.

If you are referring to TR style combat, I am all for it (ie with the ability to lock target, but still retain some "freeform" targetting). If you are aiming for pure FPS style, then just down to pure network limitations, you will hit a cap on how many players can take part.

City of Heroes, although it has a class called "tanker", it doesnt actually limit who does tanking, but makes some classes *better* at it than others (I have been known to briefly tank AV's on my squishy in it).

The holy trinity arises in general due to the "archtype" system. With a more free form system where anyone can choose any skill, and still have full effectiveness in what they choose, then you will tend to find "tank mages" being the main class... ie everyone can take a crap load of damage (or mitigate it fast) and everyone can dish it out.

Now that *can* make characters more "bland" in terms of uniqueness... but if some player skill is allowed in the game (ie fast flowing combat, or actually having a fairly complex combat mechanic behind it all ie Eve Online combat looks basic, but it is suprisingly complex with turrets) then it allows the "newer player who knows the system" to do well... it is also more of the home of the "min maxer" player.

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Third, oddly enough, combat in general. Again, MMOG seem to have great potential for making a world, not just a slightly more complex game. Maybe it's worth trying to step away and look for other activities - trade and strategy in general work well enough already, why not expand it all the way up to politics and other stuff usually grouped together as "role-playing". Sure, it's all around harder, but as years pass, more and more players I run into seem to at least acknowledge the idea, if not searching for it.

Having an open sandbox but *few* rules allows this to happen. Would also need some form of "safe zone" where griefing the "noobs" is heavily frowned upon. Eve Online politics is like this quite a bit down in 0.0 space, with the addition of NAPs/NIPs (Non Agression Pacts, Non Invasion Pacts), and general all out war in some cases up in high-sec.

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Fourth, scale and setting. This deserves a whole article of its own and has bugged me pretty much ever since I started playing MMOG's, but to cut it down somewhat - it should define exactly what your character is. "You're an adventurer. Go adventure" kind of works in swords-and-sorcery because of all the stereotypes (Thanks, D&D!), but it takes some background for a proper sci-fi tale. Just how powerful is your character, compared to a regular citizen? Why is he special? Why must he do what he does instead of following his calling as a used hovercar salesman?

Scale... depends entirely upon the game/setting. EG Shadowrun is mainly set in *one* city. There are sourcebooks for other area's, and the general world politics so you can extrapolate from there... A bladerunner MMO would be interesting, although that in itself is only actually set in one "mega city".

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Now, with different accents, this is not one game, but three vastly different ones I'd like to see! They may eventually merge into one Ubersetting and cause the collapse of civilisation, but that's going to take decades.

First offers you a huge universe for you to explore and fight over and explore on several different levels - physical, economical, industrial. Your character can do pretty much anything, as long as one core condition is met: he's relatively powerful and capable of easy travel. This pretty much exists in EVE.

Second is combat-centric, but on a much smaller scale - maybe it's a local conflict on one planet, or a solar system, or maybe an asteroid belt. It can have an external, non-player force as its main antagonist, or just pit two player factions against each other. Doesn't really matter, as long as the conflict is global, ongoing, and chaotic - not organised 15vs15 "matches" lasting 10 minutes, but never-ending battles where fortifications are built, destroyed and captured, tides turn over days, opportunities arise, and players on one side have to work together. This is what I hoped TR, later Global Agenda, and now Firefall would become.

Third is the most niche and the smallest one. Taking place in a confined and closed setting - maybe a single space station, or city, or colony; this attempts to run a player-driven plot you're more likely to see in a table-top RPG. There's little, if any combat (If you really want to, though, there's always cyberspace or VR or something), and conflicts arise around limited resources and problems that concern everyone - but whose solution will be implemented in the end and what problems of its own is it going to cause? This system works well on a much smaller scale (Look for "Space Station 13") and was attempted once or twice as a true MMOG - they weren't successful, but they weren't even known in the first place. To my knowledge, no game like this is currently running, or even planned right now.

Eve Online, Dust-514 and "Incarna Expansion"..... Eve Online is what we know already; Dust 5-14 is the FPS shooter that they have which will be used for "planet combat" between alliances and actually affect the Eve Online universe... and "Incarna" is the Walking In Stations section...

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Wow. That rant took longer than I expected. So... your thoughts?

I dont know how i replied to these... but science fiction in itself is normally "big in scale, low in detail" or "small in scale and big in detail". Developing an MMO like that from scratch is typically a VERY big investment (think a RPG takes about 5 years or so to get the *content* sorted out...)

Maybe you wont see an MMO *launch* like this, but instead have the bits added onto it over time (Star Wars Galaxies pre New Game Edition, was planet based, and then added in "Jump to Lightspeed" expansion which has ship travel/combat)...

Logged

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner4) Never tell Gangrel to do anything... he will probably get it wrong5) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.6) BLOG ME!

So more of an open sandbox setting then... It will only really apply to a certain "playstyle" of character. Does leave it more open for people to make the character that they want, but without much limitation on the "story line" they could end up with "god characters".

More open-ended, but not necessarily completely open sandbox style. There can be a goal and an emergent story - my second example basically gives that. You have to win the war. There's probably just one way to do that, but a lot of ways of getting to the point where you can do it. TR hit very close to this target, but relied on quests and pre-made plotlines more heavily.I'm not sure what you mean by "god characters".

Quote from: Gangrel

Now in an open sandbox MMO i can understand the removal of instancing. But one of the MMO's that i would *love* to see made, would actually have to use quite a bit of instancing for missions... if only just to make it more technically feasible... and to prevent peoples computers from melting.

I don't mind some instances - tutorial areas, story-line areas - but instancing every location so only you and maybe a few companions can enter, way over the top. For me, the emergent story of trekking down to fight the Megaboss, only to find that someone's already fighting him, but needs help outweighs any possibility of griefing.Besides, you can have "soft" instancing to avoid queueing. The Megaboss respawns almost instantly, but you can't enter his dungeon for a day after you've fought him. As long as he's not the only thing high-power players want to fight, it shouldn't become too crowded.

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The holy trinity arises in general due to the "archtype" system. With a more free form system where anyone can choose any skill, and still have full effectiveness in what they choose, then you will tend to find "tank mages" being the main class... ie everyone can take a crap load of damage (or mitigate it fast) and everyone can dish it out.

As far as I know, it arose from the ease of abusing some early game's aggro mechanics. It was adopted as a core mechanic because it was easy to balance and easy for the players to master - while seeming very complicated and hard! It works well in City of Heroes (Dare I say the game has perfected its use?). But there's plenty of ways to prevent "tank mages" - from equipment limitations, to skill limitations (You can only use 10), to using a "defend how?" system where a character can be pretty much invulnerable to one kind of attack, but drop dead from a single attack of another. EVE with its many types of tanking uses a kind of this system.

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Having an open sandbox but *few* rules allows this to happen. Would also need some form of "safe zone" where griefing the "noobs" is heavily frowned upon. Eve Online politics is like this quite a bit down in 0.0 space, with the addition of NAPs/NIPs (Non Agression Pacts, Non Invasion Pacts), and general all out war in some cases up in high-sec.

I wasn't talking about PvP specifically - just combat of any kind in general. On a side-note, it's an interesting challenge to make a universally-appealing combat-less game, MMOG or not.

Quote from: Gangrel

Eve Online, Dust-514 and "Incarna Expansion"..... Eve Online is what we know already; Dust 5-14 is the FPS shooter that they have which will be used for "planet combat" between alliances and actually affect the Eve Online universe... and "Incarna" is the Walking In Stations section...

And this is what I'm afraid of. Well, Incarna hits this Summer, and Dust is coming soon. So we'll see. I'm interested in how they're going to tie the three pieces together.

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I dont know how i replied to these... but science fiction in itself is normally "big in scale, low in detail" or "small in scale and big in detail". Developing an MMO like that from scratch is typically a VERY big investment (think a RPG takes about 5 years or so to get the *content* sorted out...)

Oh, don't think I'm going to take on making anything like that any time soon.

Most of this discussion will involve Tabula Rasa, since my experience of other mmos is limited (currently, I have only played Guild Wars (which I quit) and Star Trek Online).

Well, as far as ground combat goes, I like the Tabula Rasa mechanism best.The key criteria for me is target lock, I don't like to waste ammo because of "soft locking".

However, even given that, I like AOE attacks, where you can injure the enemy with splash damage.Fire Support III (I targeted an area ahead of the Thrax patrol and waited for them to walk into the fire!), Scourge, Tectonic Strike and Propellant Guns were particular favorites of mine.

Variety of and creative weapons are also important.My favored weapons were Swords, Netguns, Dual Pistols, Torqueshell Rifles, Chainguns, Propellant Guns, Polarity Guns and Rifles.The Polarity Gun I found the most interesting one, because it had an interesting attack, leeching the target's strength and returning it to them in the form of a "doomball" as I called it.

Melee combat is also something I like to see, if you want to beat down someone with your fists or a close combat weapon (Sword or Staff), do it!I had hand-to-hand combat maxed on my Spy and was literally a knockout!If I hit a Thrax, it was 90% knockback rate.And when I fought a fellow level 50 player in a boxing fight, they went down hard.

I also liked the Logos powers in the game, they were fun to use and had interesting effects.Rushing Blow was also a favored power, I loved to "leap" shields into Thrax controlled bases and lay waste to the army when they thought they were safe behind the shield.And while I'm on the subject of powers, I loved the fact you could deploy certain of them anywhere you wanted.It was funny to use Fire Support III on NPCs and put them in the middle of a firefield.

Although the game ended before this idea really took off, the ingame Mechs were a great step forward.Only Angel and the gorilla one (sorry, can't remember it's name) were deployed in the field.But if the project had been completed, AFS Mech, Engineer and the Grenadier ones (also can't remember their names!) would have been deployed.My favorite activity was the Mech vs Thrax battles on Earth and it would have been very interesting to take that into the game anywhere I wanted.

Next up on the list is armor customization.I liked the varieties of armor provided.I was especially interested when the Set Armors and the AFS Shocktrooper armor came out.My favored set armor was Atlas, for the health bonus (+100 if you modded it with 5x5 Health modules) and the AOE earthquake shock.

A minor aside was the Green Armors (the average quality) and Red Armor Sets (Morrison and British), which could provide some interesting off-duty uniforms as it were.The Costume Helmets were also fun, Halloween Masks, Space Helmet etc.

I do believe classes are a necessary part of mmos.If you want to try playing the game another way, you should be able to.By the time the game ended, I had a Spy, Sniper, Grenadier, Engineer and Demolitionist, all of these I enjoyed immensely for the different combat styles they brought to the game.But Spy and Grenadier were my absolute favorites.

Also worthy of mention were the pets.Skittern was my favorite.

Next up was the content.I particularly liked the stories I encountered.And the diversity of the locations was also interesting to me.I spent a lot of time just wandering about and looking at the scenery.

Another criteria is updates.A game that doesn't change is boring.Fortunately, Tabula Rasa had enough content updates to keep me interested.

And while I'm on the subject of updates, special events and missions are also key.Tabula Rasa had Halloween and Christmas events.Star Trek Online has Featured Episodes, which provide special ingame items and have a different kind of gameplay from what is normally found in the game.

Space Combat I also find to be interesting, although Tabula Rasa did not have this.Star Trek Online does though and I enjoy the ship to ship battles very much so.

If they made a game that had Tabula Rasa style ground combat and STO space battles, it would be a very good game!Unfortunately, this is the one area STO is not that good at, their ground combat isn't as fun as Tabula Rasa's.Some players will actively avoid the ground missions in STO for that reason.

One thing I do not want to see is games that consume an excessive amount of playtime for any reason.EvE is the worst example I can think of in this regard, Guild Wars is number 2.EvE's problem is it takes you months, if not years to learn skills.I tried it for a month or so, but left when I hit the 1million skill point cap, which slowed my skill training time from 4 days to 1 month.Guild Wars has a incredibly low drop rate compared to Tabula Rasa. You spend a great deal of time "farming" enemies in elite mode for decent drops.Your average mmo player wants the freedom to come and go as they please, not be chained to a computer for hours or days at a time.

Right, I think that's about it for my expectations in a sci-fi mmo.Congratulations on reaching the end if you're still reading this!Have a giant size cookie on me!

So more of an open sandbox setting then... It will only really apply to a certain "playstyle" of character. Does leave it more open for people to make the character that they want, but without much limitation on the "story line" they could end up with "god characters".

More open-ended, but not necessarily completely open sandbox style. There can be a goal and an emergent story - my second example basically gives that. You have to win the war. There's probably just one way to do that, but a lot of ways of getting to the point where you can do it. TR hit very close to this target, but relied on quests and pre-made plotlines more heavily.I'm not sure what you mean by "god characters".

"God Characters" is something I am starting to hate from the CoX RP community... those who can do "anything and everything at the drop of a hat". Even more annoying is when its just *one* character slot, and in RP terms they can do it but in the actual game, they are pretty damn crap. These tend to happen more in RP heavy games and "sandbox" style games?

One thing I do not want to see is games that consume an excessive amount of playtime for any reason.EvE is the worst example I can think of in this regard, Guild Wars is number 2.EvE's problem is it takes you months, if not years to learn skills.I tried it for a month or so, but left when I hit the 1million skill point cap, which slowed my skill training time from 4 days to 1 month.

Agreed *slightly* about Eve Online, in that some of the more "advanced" skills can indeed take a while to learn (or even rank 5 for them), but Eve's skill system is backloaded.. in that you can reach 80% effectiveness in 20% of the complete time.

If you want to be the "best" then yes, it does take time, but I have seen characters with minimal skill points, but players with a lot of *skill* playing the game, take out higher SP players.

Eve is *not* same account alt friendly for skill training.

Oh, and they removed learning skills, and basically made everyone have them all at top rank! (I benefitted from this change ... a few in my corp lost out!... just)

Logged

1) I reject your reality.... and substitute my own2) Not to be used when upset... will void warranty3) Stoke me a clipper i will be back for dinner4) Never tell Gangrel to do anything... he will probably get it wrong5) I have seen more intelligence from an NPC AI in TR beta, than from most MMO players.6) BLOG ME!

"God Characters" is something I am starting to hate from the CoX RP community... those who can do "anything and everything at the drop of a hat". Even more annoying is when its just *one* character slot, and in RP terms they can do it but in the actual game, they are pretty damn crap. These tend to happen more in RP heavy games and "sandbox" style games?

Eh, that's your regular Mary Sue. They happen in any game, but especially so in unmoderated ones - which maybe one or two true MMOG's aren't. When there's no-one to whack them over the head with a ban stick, all you can do is ignore them.

Quote from: Gangrel

Agreed *slightly* about Eve Online, in that some of the more "advanced" skills can indeed take a while to learn (or even rank 5 for them), but Eve's skill system is backloaded.. in that you can reach 80% effectiveness in 20% of the complete time.

True. Rank 3 means fairly skilled in EVE, 4 is competent, 5 is mastery. Unless you're trying to fly battleships in under a month (Don't), it shouldn't take you over a couple weeks to get fairly efficient in about anything - I was more worried about financial backing, frankly.

I, for one, don't mind a class system, makes a cooperation between players, especially in PUGs more fluent, as everyone knows his role (hopefully). Also a class system is somewhat easier to balance for a devs. Free-form characters , while more interesting to make, tend to end up in complete disbalance, as in you either pick a certain skills to become good (in pvp or otherwise) or you stay as a mediocre guy, picking the powers you feel like taking for your background\playstyle.And then, so those mediocre players won't feel themselves down, a devs needs to dumb things down and after that, to alleviate an outcry of a "cherrypickers" devise some "crutches" like challenge levels and so on, and hope it works out.

I also don't mind a story-driven adventures, given to a player, hoping to have a moral choices along the course of it. An extra bonus to have a consequences of a said choices to change the consequential stories somehow, not just changing an outcome of one arc.

So, what do i want from a mmorpg?The list goes as follows in no particular order.

1. A good evolving story arc or a chain of arcs with the ability to change the outcome by your actions or moral choices.

2.Good level design, i like to watch a coll looking scenery ^_^

3. I prefer a locking targeting system combat over a non-target, because as i grow older, my reflexes degrades , and in full non-target system i will always loose to a more younger competitors. Combat a-la TR works for me just fine.

4. Mount system. I wanna be able to use cars\mechs and whatnot. Bonus points for ability to give a lift to my party members

5. intuitively understandable GUI, not to fighting with an interface is a always a good thing. Bonus points for a good customisation of the parts of GUI and buttons.

6. Gameplay should be catered to those people, who have only a few hours per a play session to spare. So even under a 2-3 hour i could do something meaningful.

7. Payment plan should be p2p, it is easier to plan your spendings this way and you don't feel like being a secondary player to those used more money on a cash shop.

8. It should have a comic relief in form of funny descriptions, maybe npc, maybe events and so on. I remember good old Anarchy Online, where you can find a robot called "Marvin" or find a weapon called "Russian good day" or a jewellery with a funny poetry.

9. Russia is not blocked from signup\buying\playing due to some obscure licensing issues.

 A mature community, 21+ Lots of soloable content (I can't stand playing with and being dependent on idiots ...) and of course some group content too (some idiots aren't that much idiot after a second look). Graphics can be nice but it's no must have.  The crafting system should be deep, means: just give me 300 basic components and let me tinker around with them until I create somthing more or less useful out of it.  Give us a free open world, like Vanguard or Fallen Earth, without 'loading screens'. Get rid of fast travel/teleports, give us vehicles instead.  Real player driven economy, means: no resources/items on merchants, if resources/items are on the merchants then only because of someone sold them to another merchant. I see ingame NPC merchants more as a middle man. Classless system, you spec as you want. Together with that: respecs available via high end crafting. Open World PVP, enable via toggle for those that want, including Clan Wars, Faction Wars. Clan/Faction controllable areas. Together with the 2 above: player driven mercenary system. Deep politics/diplomacy. No instances, except for missions that can only be done in an instance because of it would mess up the game in the same 'dungeon' for others. Enemies that are a real threat and got some nasty stuff to throw at the players.

I better stop here, since the already mentioned is almost impossible to get.

Edit: almost forgot:  NO BRAZILIANS!

« Last Edit: February 25, 2011, 03:27:38 PM by teskon »

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